Program Supervisor and Reclamation Specialist respectively. COAL-BED METHANE GAS DEVELOPMENT IN MONTANA, SOME BIOLOGICAL ISSUES By

A booming coal-bed methane (CBM) gas industry may soon have far-reaching, short-and long-term impacts on Montana land and waters, with potentially serious affects on irrigation, cropland, soils, sport fisheries and regional ecosystems. Inspired by potentially high profits and economic expansion, the industry in Wyoming has been upgrading and expanding its pipeline system; and Wyoming has relaxed its water quality standards to facilitate development. There are now more than 3,000 CBM-producing wells concentrated in the Wyoming portion of Powder River Basin. Much of the ground water produced from these wells is being discharged into rivers that flow directly and into Southeastern Montana, notably the Powder, Little Powder, and Tongue Rivers and their tributaries. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Wyoming is preparing to write an environmental impact statement (EIS) to examine the potential impact of as many 30,000 CBM wells in Wyoming – ten times as many as there are now. This impressive number of wells in the region is not a far-fetched possibility for Montana. Recently, numerous CBM lease agreements and pipeline corridor rights-of